The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (37 page)

“Ow!” I shouted, but I smiled. She giggled and started bounding out of the surf.

I ran after her, tripping over the breakwater, the world swimming around me.

She raced up the sand, between two of the bonfires and into a wide gap between two tall spears of rock. I sprinted after her into a narrow sand alley shrouded in dark shadows.

The music became just a muted thump of bass. The rush of the waves echoed back at me from the rocks, along with the sound of my own breath. Firelight danced on the cliff above, casting the shadows of the other kids like a primeval tribe.

The path rounded a corner and came to an end. I looked around the small space, struggling now to keep my balance, the ground feeling not quite connected to my feet, my vision getting foggy. I spun around, where was—

“Gotcha.” Seven. Right there and she slammed into me and her hands found my shoulders and she pushed me backward against the spiny stone. My back cried out in pain but then her soaked body was against me, pressing, and her lips crashed into mine.

They were desperate, grasping, her tongue darting and licking the edges of my mouth, my chin. She was wearing some kind of papaya-flavored lip balm, sweet, tangy. I kissed back, feeling too slow, thinking that I didn’t know how to do this, I wasn’t ready for this. It was so different from the careful kiss with Lilly. This was some kind of chaos, like the goal was to get a lethal hold on each other, and it was overwhelming and yet it was so intense, creating an overpowering wave of craving inside me. My hands landed on her shoulders and ran slowly down her long, dripping back.

“Mmm.” She ran her hands over my torso, then grabbed her black top. Moving . . . Oh no . . . She pulled it over her head, off completely, and tossed it aside and then she threw herself back against me.

I couldn’t breathe. It was all sensation and movement and I wished I hadn’t taken Shine, wanted to feel everything more acutely.
You have to remember every millisecond of this
, I thought, and yet it also felt like too much already. My insides were a tornado.

Our skin made a warm, wet seal, our hearts leaping toward one another, darting and jabbing. I let my hands slide to her waist, around to her stomach, then slowly up to her neck again.

She grabbed my wrists. Her eyes got enormous, swimming with phosphorescent edges. The firelight danced eagerly on the rocks behind her. “I want you.”

I gazed back at her unable to find words. So I just started kissing her again. Meanwhile, her hands dropped to my waist, started undoing the button on my shorts. . . .

And some part of me felt like I’d known this was coming and yet I hadn’t really ever considered it. And as her hands moved, I couldn’t help thinking,
Wait! Too fast!
Wasn’t there supposed to be more lead up to all this? Even though I knew her, I also barely knew her. And parts of me felt more than ready, and were screaming at the rest of me like
what is wrong with you? Stop thinking!

But . . . I paused. Pulled back from our kiss.

Seven looked up at me. “What’s wrong?” she asked, breathless, her fingers still moving. I looked into her eyes, her pupils darting, like flies trapped against windows, and I felt my own head still swimming, like my skull was a pool and my brain was doing somersaults. And, oh no,
oh no!
I felt things falling away inside because I suddenly knew, despite how right this felt . . .

That Seven wasn’t . . .

Lilly.

No!
The ready part of me screamed.
Who cares about Lilly? She’s gone. She’s the past and you weren’t even a god then, and you and Seven are connected by ancient power! You’ve known it from the moment you saw her and she is RIGHT HERE—

But I needed more time. Because Lilly was still in my head, too. And the feelings I’d had for her . . . they weren’t far enough away yet.

I felt myself starting to move, and as the movement began, I felt a bunch of things at once: frustration, disappointment, all of my nerves and adrenaline and desires whipping into a final vortex . . . but also something like relief. My hands fell over Seven’s. And moved them away.

“I gotta slow down,” I said, breathless. “We should slow down.”

Even as I said it, I was trying to tell myself that this would just be a pause, just until another time, until I had some perspective and we’d hung out more . . . or maybe just until the Shine wore off.

“Don’t slow down,” Seven was saying. Her hands fought against mine, reaching for me again. “Just keep going, Owen. Slowing down is death. Just be here now, go with this moment . . .” She pushed harder, almost clawing at me, her breaths fast, and I saw this contorted look on her face, like she’d become some kind of desperate creature. It was more than I could handle. I didn’t know, I couldn’t be sure—

Except of one thing. I couldn’t just go with it. I’d lost the moment, and I hated that I felt that way, but it was like I’d been tossed ashore from wherever we’d just been.

And a little voice in my mind, whose shouts had been distant, was now echoing and booming, a voice that kept repeating:
Lilly
. I wanted to shout back.
What good does this do?
Lilly was gone, she . . . but it didn’t matter. The voice, my heart, whatever it was, just kept on shouting.

“Let’s just hold on for a sec,” I said, pushing her gently.

“No, Owen, don’t—”

“Seven, let’s—”

“Let’s
what
?” She jerked away, glaring at me. “Wait until we’re dead? Take it slow and die? You can’t live in this world like you’re going to have another chance at anything!”

“No, I know, I just—”

“No, you don’t! You don’t know!” Seven yanked her hands free, glaring at me. “Come on!” she shouted and slammed me in the chest.

“What’s with you?” I shouted back, knocking her hands aside. “Can’t we just take it slower?”

“NO!” she shouted, and it was so lethal and so wounded. Tears had started to fall from her loose-spinning eyes. Was I really being some kind of big jerk without realizing it? “You really don’t get it,” she mumbled, “do you?” She spun and stumbled away. Then she dropped to the sand, head in her hands. “No, you don’t.”

I stood there frozen, leaning against the rocks. I watched her cry and thought of Lilly and wondered if it was possible for me to screw things up any more.

Finally, I moved. I knelt and picked up her top and held it out to her. “Here,” I said.

She looked up, fierce, and hissed, “Am I even real to you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She looked at her hands. “What am I, even? What the hell is all this?”

“Of course you’re real . . .”

“You don’t know,” she said. “If you really knew . . .”

“I know you,” I said, wondering if I did.

“Don’t just say stuff to say it,” said Seven. She sniffed hard, grabbed her top, and slipped it on.

She stood up and when she looked at me it was cold like maybe she hated me now, but then she softened a little. “Dammit, flyboy.” She leaned forward and pressed herself against me, but lightly this time, and I considered again what I’d just missed, and I thought to myself,
You are some kind of idiot
.

Seven wrapped me in a hug but all the electricity was gone. Then she pulled away. Smiled, but sadly. “You’re a worthy god.”

I smiled, too, but inside my heart was wringing itself out. Whatever this was, it was the worst. “So are you. Really.”

Seven laughed and looked away. “Right.” A shadow passed over her face. But then she sighed and seemed to return to herself. “I’m going back swimming. You coming? I promise, I’ll be more gentle.”

“I’ll be there soon,” I said.

Seven turned and walked back out to the sea, her stunning, beautiful form leaving my sight. Girls. They were quite possibly harder to figure out than gills, ancient DNA, or secretive plots. Leech would be bashing me with his boccie ball right now if he knew what had just happened.

I leaned against the rock, feeling drained, looking up at the stars and watching them wobble, flaring in strange bursts from the Shine. Eventually, I walked back out to the beach. I spotted Seven, Kellen, and Marina playing around in the waves. I got my shirt from the sand and saw Leech and Oro making out by the rocks.

I tugged my shirt over my wet shoulders and sat by one of the bonfires. The flames flickered in liquid movements, Shine green. I watched people dance and leap off the ledge and, as the night got later, fall all over each other. When a couple rolled into me while sloppily making out, I got up and headed for the stairs.

I’d lost track of Seven and her friends. They were maybe over dancing to the band. There was a frenzy there of bouncing bodies. I thought about joining them, felt a wave of loneliness, but I started up the stairs anyway.

I wandered back through the dark streets. The only people still out were little cackling groups, drunks, spinning and dancing and falling on one another and I thought their movements suggested Shine. Lots of it. Maybe that was the real key to living bright.

Mine was wearing off, and a deep headache was setting in, along with a weird numb tingle in my fingers and toes. My thoughts felt like mush, and yet when I reached the plaza, I didn’t continue home. There was somewhere else I needed to go.

But Lilly’s room was empty.

“She hasn’t been back since you were here before,” said a nurse emerging from a nearby room.

I stared at the neatly made bed, and then noticed that Lilly’s red bag was gone, too.

I’ll find my own way
, she’d said.

And now that it was too late, I wondered how I would find mine, without her.

And when the Three have been truly revealed

They will return, to defend against the masters
,

And yet has not this journey been made before?

Over and again the cycle repeats
,

And so we must be wary of the Terra’s patience
,

For if we fail her too often
,

She may make plans of her own
.

I STUMBLED HOME, FEELING HOLLOW, SCRAPED OUT, and fell into bed. Slept dreamless and blank until well into the afternoon. When I got up, my head ached even more. My eyes felt like they’d been toasted, and though I was thirsty, my stomach didn’t feel up to anything.

There was a note from Mom; she and Emil were working the full day. I dressed and headed to the infirmary. As I crossed the main plaza, I saw decorations being put up for Nueva Luna. Groups were constructing giant moons made of wood and paper, moons with ghoulish faces, with symbols and streamers hanging off them.

I found Mom on a different hallway from any I’d been on. The rooms were narrow, each with only a bed and a large pot of flowering vines that crept up the wall and spread over the ceiling. Many had patients. They were mostly sleeping or talking quietly with family. There was little medical equipment to be seen. The floral scent was overwhelming, and yet, beneath it there was an unmistakable smell of death.

Mom knelt beside a man dressed in white. It was hard to tell how old he was, maybe forty, but his body was a wreck. His hair was gone. His chest sagged, like it had caved into the bed. He had a long, black lesion down the left side of his face. He breathed with difficulty, a rasping wheeze. And yet there was a lovely flower wreath around his neck. A bag of lime-green fluid hung beside him.

Mom pressed on his inner wrist with her stethoscope and the man moaned softly. “Sorry, William,” said Mom. “I know it hurts.”

As she let go, I saw the rippling of his flesh, the tiny white lines burrowing around. Heat worm.

“How much longer?” William wheezed, his tongue flicking out to try and moisten his cracked lips.

Mom checked her watch. “Soon. We’ll administer the Shine as soon as you’ve had a chance to see your family.”

“Now,” he moaned softly. “Please.”

Mom was dabbing William’s head with a cloth. “Shhh,” she said to him. “Try to rest.”

As her hand was drawing away, she pressed her thumb against his cheek and made a circular motion. I could almost feel the echo of that touch, tugging gently at my skin, and I worried. Was I really going to leave the mom I’d just found?

“Hey, Owen.” Mom stood and started writing some notes at the counter. Her eyes were red and wet.

“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, not so good for William, but it’s almost over.” She wiped at her eyes. “These are always hard for me,” she said. “To sit idly by. I mean, there’s nothing else to be done, even if we wanted to.” She shook her head. “But it’s still hard.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Ah, don’t worry. It’s just an emotional day. Things are getting to me that shouldn’t, you know, with your big trip starting tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t know what to say. I walked over and hugged her.